Chihuly Glass at the Desert Botanical Gardens

On other days here in Mesa we have found lots of things to keep us busy.  We play Bingo on Saturday nights.  I've been to the pool and hot tubs.  I've tried line dancing and ti chi.  We both read a lot.  Noel's been to the workout room and likes the lapidary class.  One afternoon we went to "downtown" Mesa to look around and found they have various art statues on every corner in their "historic district".  We also found a great antique store we enjoyed wasting a hour or two in.

 A passing little boy called him "creepy" - I agree!

 This just cracked me up....

On the 2nd Tuesday of the month, the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix is free (regulary $22/person), so we, and about 10,000 other people, took advantage of the savings to see the Chihuly Glass exhibit.  So glad we did - it was amazing!

Of course in addition to the glass, the gardens themselves were pretty cool.  I never knew there were so many types of cactus and desert flowers!  I've always thought of myself as a beach girl, but both of us are really finding the bio-diversity here fun to learn about.

 This big art cactus is made from pick ax handles!

 The contrast between the dark rocks and the yellow green

cactus was so striking

 even bees get thirsty in the desert!

 Called a boojum tree, Dr. Seuss himself couldn't

come up with something more strange looking

 Of course you can never get away from pesky bugs

 butterflies in the desert! Who knew?

 some cactus tower as tall as trees and are hundreds of years old

 A purple prickly pear - say that 3 times fast!

 looks painful!

 I guess the red tips remind us this thing WILL draw blood!

 A real roadrunner bird!  Beep Beep! No Wile E Coyote in sight

 A totem pole cactus

Isn't this pretty??

On another afternoon, we took a drive to Casa Grande Indian Ruins National Monument.  Fascinating history of the native people that once farmed this area, back when water was still plentiful...

So that's been our last 2 weeks or so!

Several people have asked whether the better weather has made me feel any better and my answer to that is a resounding.........no.  I'm sure the bitter cold weather in Ohio would have made me miserable, but I am finding that I have just as much pain here, and it took me 4 days to recover from our adventure in Tucson.  I've been taking pain meds and I had to use one of my hoarded stash of pain patches to get me through.  Today I saw a local chiropractor, so I'm hoping he can help my back.  We cut our visit to the botanical gardens short because I was in more pain than I could handle.  I'm not complaining, I thank God everyday that we are fortunate to be able to do this.  I'm trying not to make it the focus of the blog, (I've had inquiries from people asking about traveling with chronic pain), but my friends and family know I put on a smile and figure I can hurt having fun as much as I can hurt at home.

As far as Noel's health, he has had some issues on this trip, but I'm THIIIIISSSSS close to getting him to see a doctor here in Arizona.  Thank you all for continuing to support us, pray for us, go through our mail for us, etc.  We both appreciate it.

One more thing, I am making jewelry from the gemstones I have purchased at the two big gem shows, and I'll be posting pics soon.  I'm having to come to the resort's computer room since we can't get wifi :(

Stay warm peeps!  Spring is coming.....